Fear not: the dead are dead,
And fallen pomp and power
Leave no pale ghosts to prowl
Above their earthly bed:
'Twas no dead Roman but a living owl
That startled us beside the ruined tower.

And yet, that beak, those eyes
That blazed out from the night!
Surely 'twas Caesar's soul
That with sharp stabbing cries
Swept by, as through the buried camp we stole,
Spurring dead cohorts on to one last fight.